Day 32...this is what my life has come down to. I count the days since my headache started. The first two weeks I "muscled" through it. When things started spinning and I threw up at work that was when enough was enough. I left work early that day (Saturday April 12) and haven't been back since. Called the walk in clinic at my doctors office and they said since I was throwing up to go to ER. Went to ER told them about headache and length of headache. Told them about dizziness and vomiting and about sinus pain. Diagnosis was sinus infection with headache. Given intravenous drugs and sent home with a prescription for antibiotics and pain meds. Told if it gets worse call my doctor. Sunday no better. Monday no better, call doctor told to go back to ER for a shot. So back to ER I go. Given more IV drugs, a ct scan was done which was abnormal so an mri was done both with and without contrast and it was normal. Sent home with new prescription for pain meds. Told if still hurting to call doctor for referral to neurologist. Call doctor on Tuesday for said referral. Call back a few hours later to check on referral, it had been approved just waiting on his nurse to call neurologist. Wednesday morning I call because I had not heard back from doctor's office. At first it looked like referral had not been approved after all then yes referral was approved but the nurse still had not called neurologist. So I wait, while head feels like it will explode at any moment. Finally late afternoon doctors office calls and tells me I have an appointment for Wednesday April 30, two weeks from the day we are on. I am in tears! I will not survive for two weeks and say so to the nurse. She tells me to go back to the ER for another shot. You know the ones that have worked so well the past two visits, right? So I hang up. I call work, cause I was scheduled for this whole week and been calling off one day at a time. I am sobbing, luckily my friend happens to answer when I call and she can understand what I am saying between sobs (and she is furious for me!) and she gets a manager for me. My mom walks in and hears me crying in my bedroom sitting in the dark talking. She thinks I am talking to myself. I am trying to explain to Scott what is going on. He thinks it's my back, which oh yea I forgot to mention I was recently diagnosed with having several bulging discs cause you know I love to have a lot going on in my life, and I am trying to tell him it's my head. So anyway I tell him I am going to have my mom explain it all to him. SO she is talking to him and explaining what all has happened and finally she says, is this Scott? She knows Scott lol. So back to the ER I go. By now I am also having chest pains. I tell them about them but am sure it's an anxiety attack, ya think? But they run all the heart test just to be safe. They run the IV drugs, a migraine cocktail blah blah blah. Now when I came in my pain level was a 12 and when I left I would say maybe a 6.5 but I was pretty drugged by then. So I go home with two new prescriptions. Thing is once the drugs wore off, yeah you guessed it right back to a 12. So I have at this point told them I am calling off for the rest of the week, this headache is not going to leave and if anything is getting worse.
So we come up on Monday April 21, I go for physical therapy for the bulging discs in my back. I get home and call the neurologists office just to see if they can get me in any earlier, I get the nurses voice mail. She calls me back fairly quickly, and says well your appointment is actually for this Wednesday April 23. Well that was a relief. So I go to the appointment and I like the doctor but the more I think about it the more I feel he isn't being as aggressive in trying to 1. stop the pain and 2. figure out what is causing the pain. He wants me to keep taking the last medication I was prescribed which is supposed to help prevent migraines and he ordered a sleep study. Now while I have migraines. This is not a migraine, or at least the continues headache is not one. I think I have had several migraines on stop of the headache from hell but the 32 day headache is not one very long headache. I also don't think I have sleep apnea, but I am fine with doing the sleep study but the next available appointment wasn't until May 14! I told him I wasn't able to work, that I had applied for short term disability he said he was fine with filing out the paper work for that and put that I could return to work on May 11. HUH?! I am still having the mind numbing headaches, no tests have been done to figure out why, nothing is making the pain go away. The sleep study isn't until May 14 and he says I can go back to work 3 days before that?
So last week I called his nurse and told her my gut is just saying it's something more then migraines and/or sleep apnea. He had talked about doing a spinal tap at the end of May beginning of June if the headaches weren't getting any better. I asked her to talk to him and tell him I want it done now instead of waiting. I just know there is something more wrong. I have all these others symptoms. The back of my head hurts, like someone has hit me with a baseball bat or hit my head against a wall or something. The top of my head feels like it is on fire. The back of my head down my neck to my shoulders have all these muscle spasms, like all the time. Then my fingers and toes get tingly/numb and lose feeling. My face hurts and looks swollen and my cheeks, nose and lips get numb. I am also having memory issues. And occasionally I have fluid dripping out my nose, which is very annoying! I did make an appointment with an Ears, Nose, Throat doctor and that is scheduled for Monday and my neurologist did agree to the spinal tap and that is scheduled for Wednesday. So maybe I will finally start getting some answers.
I feel like I am going crazy! The pain just never goes away, and then there are all the other things. And I'm not working, and don't even know if the short term disability has been approved yet. =(
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